


Red Skies

by thisbluespirit



Category: Dracula (TV 1968)
Genre: Bad Weather, Community: hc_bingo, Dark, Multi, Post-Canon, Rain, Trapped, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27309085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit
Summary: A storm breaks without warning.
Relationships: Jonathan Harker/Mina Harker/John Seward
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 11, Whumptober 2020





	Red Skies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calliopes_pen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calliopes_pen/gifts).



> Written for Whumptober #27 "Extreme Weather" and also for hc_bingo square "Trapped together". Also for Calliopes_pen who suggested this one for Dracula 1968.

The three of them were halfway along the coastal path to Staithes when the storm blew up. It had been a fine spring afternoon when they had left Whitby, but now the clouds gathered with startling swiftness over the North Sea, and they heard a clap of distant thunder. The wind was getting up, whipping round them with a bite to it that had not been present before. 

Jonathan had still not recovered from his ordeal and they had had several walks together before, Mrs Harker’s hoping to raise her husband’s spirits and help restore his strength. John accompanied them each time, for while Jonathan had never relapsed into the violent episodes he had suffered before Dracula’s destruction, he could not be certain they would not recur. If they did, John did not like the idea of Mrs Harker – Mina – alone with Jonathan on a cliff top.

“Oh, no,” said Mina, stopping short beside John, glancing up at him and then down at her light coat and cream skirt with a grimace.

The second roll of thunder sounded nearer and startled Jonathan, who, oblivious to Mina’s cries, raced away from them, over the moorland. Mina hitched up her skirt and raced after him.

John, after a glance around to see if help might be at hand, hurried after Mina. He caught her on the brow of the hill, looking down the steep, winding path that led into the valley. There was no sign of civilisation in sight but sheep on the hillside and a lone farmhouse halfway down.

“Which way did he go?” Mina said, catching hold of John’s arm.

John squinted downwards, scanning the scene for any sign of Jonathan, and spied something moving rapidly along the road, grey and white, and then it was gone. He leant in towards Mina and pointed, even as lightning flashed and the storm broke over their heads with a mighty sound of thunder.

“Oh!” gasped Mina in shock at the cold, thick drops falling fast and hard. Then she raised her head and set her face, before started down the steep incline after Jonathan. John followed, reaching her in time to catch hold of her hand and prevent her slipping on the wet grass.

She threw a rueful, amused look up at him and kept hold of his hand as they made their way down as carefully as they could. Even so, John finished his descent by sliding into a puddle at the bottom by the gate into the field, plastering his left trouser leg with mud. He straightened himself up, Mina catching hold of his elbow to help. 

Mina, though less muddy, was otherwise in a far worse condition. Her clothes hung heavy on her, drenched with water. John’s greatcoat and hat had shielded him from the worst, but he was rapidly growing wetter. He only wished he had been quick enough to lend her the coat before she’d run off, but she had been thinking of Jonathan.

“Where is he?” Mina asked, evidently still thinking of Jonathan. She wiped her face with a wet glove, but it did little good.

“I don’t know, but first we must get you to shelter. I saw a house,” John said. “It was a little further down the lane. In any case, they might have seen Jonathan pass by.”

Mina hesitated, but she was already shivering from the cold and the weight of her clothes would soon begin to make looking for Jonathan impractical.

“Once you’re safe, I can go in search of him again,” John added, and was rewarded with a grateful smile. He did not like the thought of his vulnerable patient running about the moors in this weather, either. What Jonathan remembered of the past year was unclear, but he had arrived in Whitby on a barque that had been wrecked during a severe storm. Small wonder that thunder might overset his fragile balance of mind.

The small farmhouse was empty. On approaching it John and Mina could see no smoke rising from the chimney, no curtain at the window, and one of the panes had been boarded over. The door opened at John’s touch, revealing a dusty hallway and stairs. He pulled Mina in after him and on into the main room beyond, furnished with a wooden table and three chairs, the range unlit at the chimney breast and an old dresser in an alcove.

John dripped onto the flagstones as he went, while Mina had a veritable puddle pooling around her skirts. She was shivering uncontrollably. He took a step towards her, to help her, but she gave a small cry and darted forward, nearly falling over her stiff and sodden skirts.

John watched as she flung herself down onto the flagstones in the corner, and saw Jonathan there, cowering behind the table. “Thank God,” he said, with feeling, and then bent down to raise Mina up. He was concerned for Jonathan, too, but Mina was foremost in need.

She turned her head, forehead furrowing, as she faced him. “John?”

John might not be up to dealing with vampires and the supernatural, but a practical emergency such as this was another matter. He kept hold of her arm, gently but firmly, and said, “You must get out of those clothes.”

Mina hesitated, as if about to argue, but she was shivering too violently to speak. She gave a nod.

“I’ll see if I can find anything useful,” John offered. He shrugged off his greatcoat and hung it over the nearest chair, then went off to hunt around upstairs.

He returned with an old blanket, left in the closet. Jonathan was rocking himself in the corner, but he made little noise and seemed comparatively calm. Mina, on the other hand, had pulled off her gloves and her hat and shed her outer coat and the cream jacket, but was making heavy work of the buttons on her blouse with icy, unsteady fingers.

John coughed and looked around, as if for some helpful farmer’s wife to appear and assist, but there was no one at hand but him. He must remember he was a doctor and forget anything else. He moved over to Mina, unbuttoning the tiny, textured buttons, and his movements were none too steady, either, though he refused to acknowledge that, even to himself. She stepped out of her skirt, and he removed the muslin blouse, leaving her in her undergarments and petticoats. Hastily, he wrapped the rough blanket around her. Her shivering eased almost immediately, and she gave him a small smile. He stepped carefully away, leaving her to deal with the remainder of her wet things with the blanket for privacy.

John walked over to Jonathan and crouched down beside him. He must have got here before the rain hit in earnest, for he seemed dry enough at least. 

“It’s all right,” John said softly, and cautiously put a hand to the man’s shoulder. Jonathan lifted his head, but did not flinch or pull away. “You’re safe in here with us.”

“How is he?” called Mina, slightly muffled from behind the blanket.

John looked back at Jonathan. “Well? How are you, Harker?”

“Safe,” murmured Jonathan and then blinked, his gaze focusing on John. “Yes. Safe enough with you. But are _you_ safe with us?”

John blinked and then laughed at the unexpected question. “I don’t see why not.”

“Look.” Jonathan nodded over to the window. The rain was pouring down it, a trickle of water from a crack in one of the lower panes puddling on the stone sill. “We won’t get away from here in a hurry. And I don’t advise you to spend the night with us!”

John patted his shoulder. “No, no, Jonathan. There’s no danger here – not unless this roof sprouts a leak.”

“Jonathan,” said Mina, coming across to join them, the blanket pulled tightly around her. She had left her petticoats and stockings behind her in a muddied-white heap on the floor. “Are you well?”

Jonathan, tired from the conversation and the activity, shrugged and leant in against the wall, closing his eyes. “Yes. Well. For now – eh, Mina?”

“What do you mean?” said Mina. John watched her face, and thought she looked as baffled as he felt by Jonathan’s cryptic warnings. Still, it was hardly wonderful that such a disturbance had reminded Jonathan of his previous state. Staying here for the night, if they must, was unfortunate and would be uncomfortable, but nothing worse. The unnatural terrors that had plagued them had gone away with the Count and the Professor. There was nothing left to worry about.

John woke suddenly, as if startled by something, but all he could hear was the rain hammering on the roof, much as it had done ever since they got there. The dying fire in the grate, lit earlier by Mina was the only illumination. John shifted his position on the uncomfortable wooden chair. Since there was only fuel enough for one fire, the three of them were sharing the upstairs room. It had a bed and mattress still in it, swathed in a dust sheet. Naturally, Jonathan and Mina had the bed and John was making do with the chair. Anything else would be shocking behaviour.

He gave a grunt as he moved, cold in his shirtsleeves, his joints stiff and aching from the awkward position in which he’d been sleeping.

“John.”

He turned his head sharply. “Mina. Mrs Harker.”

“John,” she said again. He could see her raising her head, a pale shape in the gloom. Her eyes glittered and his heart thumped harder in his chest. The hairs on his skin began to lift. Something was wrong – unnatural. But no, he told himself, that could not be. He had seen Count Dracula disintegrate in front of him.

Mina sat up, the blanket falling away from her, revealing her chemise. She held out her hand towards John. “You’re cold,” she said, her voice oddly hoarse. “John. Come over here, with us, where it’s warm.”

“Mrs Harker,” he said, clinging feebly to the proprieties they had already abandoned, even as his mind tried to agree with her: he was tired and uncomfortable, he was cold. What could be the harm? He coughed. “That would not be wise.”

Mina laughed. “Does that matter? It would be so much nicer.”

“Jonathan.” It was John’s last hope of appeal.

Jonathan’s prone grey shape beside Mina on the bed shifted as he turned to face John. He grinned across the room and the light left in the room dimmed further. 

“You should do what she says,” Jonathan said. “Always do what she says, John. It’s so much better that way. Come and join us.”

Mina was still holding out her hand. “We’ve been waiting for this for too long.” 

John glanced at the window, but a gale seemed to be driving the rain into it; a reminder of how inhospitable it was outside. 

“You want to escape,” said Mina. “But you can’t go out in that storm and, in any case, it’s not us you want to escape. All that loss, all that grief.” She tilted her head to one side, a compelling, hungry light in her eye. “So tired – so lonely – so cold.” She stretched out her hand further.

John didn’t even recall rising from the chair – had he been standing or sitting throughout that conversation? He could not now think. The next thing he knew was clasping her hand, and letting her pull him in towards the bed. He was too exhausted to think, reason fast deserting him, leaving only the need to be warm and together with the other two, not apart from them, whichever side of a divide they lay.

“You’re ours now,” Mina said, tugging him down between them, her hand around his wrist.

“Ours,” echoed Jonathan, and laughed again.

All John could say was, “Yes.” None of it seemed to matter very much.

Mina touched his face as Jonathan put his arms around John, a confining embrace, but he surrendered to it, eyes fixed on Mina. She smiled and traced a line down his cheek. “Kiss me,” she said, and he did.


End file.
